Lessons in the Night Sky

"Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created." James 1:16-18

Jenette and I had our date today - we went to a workshop at a local tree nursery about growing fruit trees. We are looking forward to starting our journey with fruit trees. Our family can easily eat an entire case of apples in just one week, so a little family orchard is something we are wanting to get established. We are still wrestling with where and how to plant the trees - we essentially live on a classic Missouri glade, with little but rocks beneath the ground's surface.

While it is freezing cold tonight, just two days ago it was quite balmy. We took the opportunity to do some stargazing on Wednesday night. It was truly a perfect night - no wind, just a little cool, and a clear, moonless night. In fact, it was warm enough that we could hear spring peepers starting to sing their song for the first time this year. Hopefully all those little frogs won't freeze to death tonight.

One of the great things about living here at the camp is that there is a great place to observe the night sky - away from city lights and open enough to see the whole sky. It's on the south property, away from all the lights, out on the open glade that is only used as a cow pasture for right now.

We saw Orion so clearly - and Pleades as clear as I have ever seen. Canis Major (the Big Dog) is one that I have never noticed before, but we saw that one, as well as Cassiopeia and Ursa Major (and Minor) - We pointed out the North Star (Polaris), Sirius, and Venus - so bright that it dominated the sky. The Milky Way was bright and obvious - especially after we had been out there for an hour or so. Joel is our family's official science teacher (by popular vote and by expert status), so I let him do most of the instruction. The kids wanted to quote Psalm 19, so we did that. It was a beautiful night. To sit and consider the glories of the night sky is something that many people never do - yet it just shouts out the power of God and the smallness of people.

Joel told me a quote he read in a book or heard somewhere - that if you put three grains of sand into a cathedral, that the sand in the cathedral would be more dense in filling up the cathedral's space than all the known stars filling up the space of the universe. Of course the assumption there is that the universe has some limited, known space, which is little more than just a random guess by so called scientists.

We have a little book about space and stars that someone gave us, and it begins like this: "In the beginning, there was nothing..." Obviously, without any reference point or reality or truth, everything else in the book is questionable. Without Polaris being fixed in space as we look at it, it wouldn't have guided sailors and adventurers all over the world for hundreds - even thousands of years. Without a point of reference, there is no reality or truth to live by. The book might has well have started, "in the beginning, giant pink bunnies played basketball with plastic mannequin heads." Because if one ridiculous nonsense statement could be made, the option is left open for many others.

If I don't fix my life and the lives of my children on the one reference point - the reality of God and His interaction with us in His Word, then my children can and will believe anything about the world, themselves, and their interaction with God. Is it any wonder that our culture is so twisted, when we haven't pointed the next generation to their spiritual North Star?

Our culture is more like the thinking of a toddler, instead of being "mature and complete," as it says in James. One of the delightful things that happened the other night was that Josie found something and lovingly gave it to Jenette. (Well, actually, she threw it at Jenette). Josie has this fondness for finding random things and giving them to people. Sometimes, she throws it when she is trying to give it to us. She is always very excited about giving something to someone, so she almost squeals in happiness: "Hee, mommy," (or daddy, or whoever.) "Hee" in Josie-ese is translated into English as "Here."

So, out there in the dark, looking at the stars, Josie finds something, and being the very helpful little girl that she is, says "Hee, Mommy!" and tosses this thing at Jenette. Jenette is somewhat startled and dismayed to find that Josie had thrown a cowpie at her. After we turned on the flashlights to find the flung dung, Jenette's panic subsided when she realized that it was a fairly dry pie.

All the other kids and I were thankful that Josie had chosen her mother to endow with such a glorious gift.